Tag Archives: gardening

Just like the first spring blooms that have craned their necks out a little later this year due to the lengthy winter we have endured here in Ontario, we are slowly doing the same and beginning to stretch out a bit once again and unfurl. The last nine months have been spent adjusting to life with a newborn again.

While caring for a newborn is the most intense and rewarding experience I have the pleasure to share with my family, it takes a toll on all of us as we try to get back to some semblance of normal.

Gardening with our three girls is one of the ways we connect to our surroundings and each other. Not surprisingly, it feels very ‘grounding’. Having the sun warm your back and children giggling by your side, while you dig, and prepare the soil and plant the seeds, is very comforting and therapeutic and somehow sets everything in perspective. Stick with the basics, hold on to those close to you, do the work, reap the rewards. The answers are all there in nature.

We have been experiencing quite the heat wave here the last few weeks! School has finally let out and the girls are eager to start our summer vacation in the city.

For the most part, we’ve been keeping the schedule simple: a good breakfast, some water colour painting for J and R while I prepare the lunch we will bring with us on our outing, and then a visit to one of our local parks and wading pool/ splash pad. We go home early afternoon, run some errands and then have some down time to sleep, or do quiet activities or chores around the house. Late afternoon is usually reserved for gardening or sprinkler fun for the girls, then a bit of free play (these days it’s dress up and/ pretend grocery shopping) while I prepare dinner.

Speaking of gardening, we have finally set up our fairy garden. I mentioned in an earlier post back in February (when the weather fooled us into believing spring had begun and was there to stay!) that we had grand plans for a garden that the girls could call their very own, complete with their own garden fairies.

Directions:
– together with your kids, sketch a plan of how you would like your fairy garden to look like. Include type and colour of flowers/plants, fairy house, pond, pathway, furniture, figurines, etc.
– choose a suitable location for the fairy garden where it will get enough sunlight and shade if necessary, as well as be easy for the children to play and for all of you to access with a watering can or hose.
– Make sure there is a hole at the bottom before you fill the barrel for proper drainage. For better water drainage and soil aeration you can also put a layer of gravel or small rocks on the bottom of planter as well.
– fill barrel/ planter up to 2/3 level with soil.
– plant chosen flowers/ plants/ moss according to your sketch.
– include the figurines and any other accessories.
– water and prune accordingly, play daily!

Donni has some great tips and even a fairy garden contest you can enter to win some great prizes!

We are also really quite taken with this amazing natural parenting and toystore that is run by a local mompreneur and friend: http://www.avasappletree.ca/

Ava’s Appletree has some really great products and was where we purchased our fairy house and fairy kit. You can easily create two beautiful felted fairies with the kit.

Here are a few pictures of our little fairy garden so you can get an idea of how to make your own. Our fairy garden is of course still a work in progress but we are quite pleased with it so far!

Note: We now have a little house and a pond and pathway (will add photos of this in future) but alas I waited too long to take a picture of the completed project so the plants have overgrown somewhat and hidden the pathway and fairy house so some pruning needs to be done first!

As the snowdrops and crocuses peak their bright little heads out, I can’t help but feel an urge to garden and create.

Yesterday, my girls and I set out to prepare the front garden. We raked the remainder of the fallen leaves of autumn, and tilled the soil in preparation for the spring flowers we wish to give tribute to in our beautiful celadon green planter: tulips! As this is the first spring in our wonderful new home, we are unfamiliar with the vegetation that also calls our home, their home, and are looking forward to discovering what new growth appears in the coming months. We are hoping for a colourful symphony! In the meantime, my girls and I will be creating a fairy garden. This is an idea I came across last summer but alas, do to our move we were in no position to plant anything and were instead living the life of nomads

So, now here we are with a new spring…and a fresh desire to plant and garden. As Miss J’s birthday is coming up, we thought that starting her very own fairy garden would be a wonderful way to celebrate the season for her. And since I now have two girls, the younger one will have to have her very own as well. For more info on how to make your own fairy garden, please visit this fantastic and creative blogger, Donni here on her site the Magic Onions: http://themagiconions.blogspot.com/2010/08/make-fairy-garden.html

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About

Welcome! I am a Practitioner of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, Writer, Wife, Mama of 3, and Seeker of beauty and light in each day. Here you will find topics related to natural health and parenting. Enjoy!